Steve McClaren says he can now trust "his young guns" to deliver the goods on the biggest stage of all after watching his much changed side overcome Egaleo in Athens last night.

Talented teenagers Tony McMahon and James Morrison have been thrown in at the deep end in recent weeks after a spate of frustrating injuries robbed the manager of key players.

Now that those main men are returning to the fold, McClaren is resisting the temptation of banishing the impressive under-studies back to the subs' bench.

Morrison was picked ahead of Gaizka Mendieta last night while Downing came off the bench to once again show the manager why he believes he's Boro's best bet on the left of midfield.

It says a huge amount about the faith McClaren has in his starlets that he was prepared to field a right flank with a combined age of just 36 in a massively important UEFA Cup second round tie.

"It's always a gamble to rest your senior players, but I've got to look at the bigger picture and something has to give," he said.

"We've got a huge amount of games coming up and I can't ask the same players to play three games in a week and still expect them to be on top form.

"The players accept that they may be rested and I have the confidence in the lads who are coming into the team, I know they can do the job and I trust them to deliver in pressure situations, we saw that at Old Trafford, at Ostrava and in Athens.

"We're giving these young lads experience of European football, it's tremendous for their development and the influence of the senior players is rubbing off."

McClaren admitted that he might have settled for a point going into last night's Group E opener against Egaleo.

"Maybe we would have settled for a draw, but it was a big game for us and we needed to get a result," he said.